Dead in the Water (for MCC RPG)

Hello everyone!

If it seems that I have not posted in awhile, that because I have been caught up with real life — the bane of all RPG players.

I was working on another art project with Tim Snider and the final product came in my mailbox. Unlike the other projects, this one is for Goodman Games' Mutant Crawl Classic (instead of Mutant Future), and this one showcase a painting I did for him years ago on the cover (while working on the last Mutant Future-based supplement). I was so happy to see one of my pictures on the cover, I wanted to shout it from the rooftop, but them I remembered I have a Blog (pardon the dust... and cobwebs... and the old Christmas boxes... and the dead hookers).

 

 

The 16-page booklet — first featured at Gamehole Con in Madison, WI — is a simple "funnel adventure", for 12 to 16 zero-level characters. For those unfamiliar with Mutant Crawl Classic, as a standard rule, players start with multiple characters due to the high mortality rate at level-zero — once they gain a level, they play a single character with a class, and all the abilities that comes with it. If you cannot tell, where Mutant Future is the spiritual successor of 2nd ed. Gamma World, MCC feels like a successor of 4th ed. GW.

The adventure that takes place in The Rainbow Sea, on the legendary Island of Fire, where horrible mutants that stalk a local fishing village dwell! Your mission is to head out it the island and deal with these foul creatures.

Gamma World and Mad Max Don't Mix

One odd issue I have with how people (mostly artists) try to portray Gamma World, and by extension Mutant Future, is how people try to make it look and feel like a Mad Max movie. Now don't get me wrong, I like the '80s-glam, Mad Max-inspired style of post-apocalypses movies (including all the clones that came of it), but to me it is a poor fit. That is, what you look past all leather-clad bikers and over use of hairspray, it is largely a serious, hard-edge genre that relies on there being an apocalypses sometime in the near future. The ecosystems have collapsed to nuclear fallout, once civilized people look like malnourished people from a hard-hit Third World country, animals are so scarce, people are having to eat diseased rats, and it uses a lot of modern technology — especially guns and heavily modified “Road Warrior” cars. Given the desperate, hard-edge nature of this genre, I tend to call it “Rat-Eater” fiction. I even call the future scenes from The Terminator movies “Rat-Eater” segments.

Now, Gamma World has always been called out for being silly and goofy, but most people do not understand the nature of the setting. Gamma World was the product of the era of Silver Age of Comic Books (1950s-'70s). For those that don't know, the Silver Age of Comics was an era of dramatic super-science, strange scenarios, weird worlds, and lots of campy elements. To think of how this relates to Gamma World, imagine if the first edition was illustrated by Jack Kirby. Let that sink in for a second... This is the guy who took the basic outline of Planet of the Apes and turned it into Kamandi: The Last Boy on Earth, and turned the comic book adaptation of 2001: A Space Odyssey into a crazy-ass acid trip... More so then the end of movie. Gamma World takes place after the people of a Jetson-styled future blew themselves up. The aftermath was a world where green-glowing radiation gave people and wildlife comic book-like mutations. Imagine a world with anthropomorphic animals, plant-men, mobile sentient plants, three-tittied bimbos, people that would make the X-Men look quaint... All in a world littered with the ruins of a once super-technological civilization, engulfed by the growth of ever mutating ecosystems!

Why settle for just three? ;p

So yeah, they both have their cool aspects, but in the end, one is oil, and the other is... Well...? The Colour Out of Space. You can put some aspects of Gamma World into Rat-Eater, but it would loose its gritty, hard-edge feel. You can put some aspects of Rat-Eater into Gamma World, but they would quickly get overtaken by everything else. I mean, you could add leather-clad bikes with modern gear, but they would not stand a chance against all the mutants and tech-users that haunt such strange world such as Gamma World. On top of that, the Rat-Eater elements would just be seen as another odd element. That is, the leather-clad bikers would use high-tech gear (hover-bikes and blasters) and have leather-clad three-tittied bimbos with them. In other words, mothafuckin' Lobo!

Yeah, like that, but with the chick form the above pic.

The Metamorphica

 Last week, I ordered The Metamorphica from Lulu.com (here is the free copy, and here is the printed copy), and it came in yesterday. When I found out about it two weeks ago, and download it, it was something that I had to get, as an electronic copy dose not compare to a physical copy (dead-tree editions are good, but I would settle on the file, if I had an e-reader to read it from). As far as mutation/super-power lists go, this is the most extensive and versatile! This book is not bound to a single rule system, so it can be used in nearly any system, if you don't mind adding the rules for each mutation. Thankfully, many are superficial traits with little or no barrings to the rules. They are written like the descriptions from first edition Gamma World, but expunged of all mechanics, save for range and duration, and even still, they are listed on random tables. And there are lots and lots of random tables! The entire mutation list can be rolled by a single roll of a d1000 (like a normal d00/d% roll, but with an extra die for the hundreds), or rolled by categories, using more exotic rolls with bonuses in increments of hundreds (see below). The categories are:

1-200 Body: Form (d200)
201-400 Body: Function (d200+200, or d400 for both)
401-500 Mind: Behaviours (d100+400)
501-600 Mind:Cognition (d100+500, d200+400 for both, or d600 with all above)
601-700 Psychic Powers (d100+600, d300+400 with mind, or d700 will all above)
701-1000 Supernatural Attributes (d300+700, d400+600 with psychic, or d600+400 with psychic and mind)

Body: Form are the physical mutations that effect how you look, and makes you appear freakish. Body: Function are the physical mutations that effect how you use your body, but dose not always effect how you appear. Mind: Behaviours are the mental mutations that effect the way you think. As they are neurological impulsion and insanity, they can be used on normal people who have been exposed to stress... or eldrich forces! Mind: Cognition are the mental mutations that effect who your brain works. They work like natural talents or mental disabilities. Psychic Powers are paranormal mental mutations that provides control over other minds and physical states. Supernatural Attributes are paranormal abilities you would find with superheros and mythological creatures. The master table is easy to read, and notes the page numbers in a clear but subdued way. This method of indexing is a big plus.

Naturally, you will not find a 200-sided die for sale (as if the 100-sided gulf ball was not bad enough), but you can workout your own system of rolling. For example, you can roll a d200 by replacing the d10 for the '10s' with a d20. Something like a d300 (and no d30 at hand) you can roll d% normally, but with a d3 multiplier die (1 = +100; 2 = +200; 3 = +0 - the highest roll always gives nothing in this method).

Following this big list, there are a useful notes and charts in the four appendices. The first appendix has additional tables for this or that. This is great if you want to come up with strange, new creatures, or to full in some details from the master list, if you don't want to choose your own bodily form. Appendix 2 is good for making mutants, with an appearance change table, beneficial and detrimental mental and physical mutations, quick physical mutant features, and quick superhero powers. Appendix 3 has notes and a few tables for making a character by genre. They include lab-experiments you would see in an old B-move or video game, comic book superheroes, Gamma World-styled post-apocalyptic mutants, and the demonic aberrations you'll find in the old Realm of Chaos books from Warhammer Fantasy Battle. The last appendix has notes on making mutants by genotype. This includes Beastlings, Demons, Mutant Hordes, Mutant Plants, Uplifted Animals, and Xenobiology. The book ends with three pages of bibliography, that helped made the book. Naturally, most of these are role-playing books, but a number of them are works of fiction, with a good number of them being by H.P. Lovecraft.

The cover has an evocative image of a medusa-like woman, with tentacle-hair in place of snakes, and white all around. The interior art is simple, minimal and seem to serve as bookends for a chapter to fill what would otherwise be empty space. They are a mixed bag of styles, but are otherwise OK. The interior layout is simple, and without a lot of fancy fonts or decorations (boarders or fancy headers). The book is a softcover, digest-size book. Without rule content or a lot of artwork, the book packs A LOT for a 154 pages.

The Good: This is a highly indispensable supplement for any post-apocalypse science fantasy, superhero, space opera, pulp-horror, sword & sorcery, and mad-science themed games or settings. It is also well laid out. You would find more mutants than you'll know what to do with them!

The Bad: The lack of rules means you'll have to do a lot of paperwork, if they are not covered by the rules of your choice.

I can not highly recommend this book enough!